Printing for the way Richmond does business.
Richmond is a state capital, a finance and law center and an arts city with a creative streak, and it likes print with some craft in it.
Richmond is state government and the law firms and associations around the Capitol, banking and financial services headquartered downtown, a large healthcare system, a university with a well-known art and design school, and a food and craft beer scene that draws people up from the coast. Scott’s Addition carries the breweries and studios; Carytown and the Fan carry the shops, restaurants and practices; the West End and the suburbs carry the households.
Print in Richmond benefits from the design talent that comes out of its art school. Cards with craft, postcards with illustration, flyers that look like posters. The professional sectors keep clean cards and sales sheets in demand, and the convention center and the festival calendar keep banners moving.
Where print earns its keep in Richmond.
Print works differently in different parts of a city. These are the places in Richmond where a printed piece tends to do the most work, and the piece that usually suits each one.
Downtown and the Capitol. Government, law and finance. Cards that feel established and a one-pager for the meeting.
Scott’s Addition. Breweries, distilleries and studios. Postcards, rack cards and flyers with craft.
Carytown and the Fan. Boutiques, restaurants and practices. Postcards, rack cards and door hangers.
The Greater Richmond Convention Center. Conferences and consumer shows. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.
One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.
What Richmond tends to order. Richmond's craft breweries and design-school graduates keep illustrated postcards, rack cards and painted-edge cards in steady demand, formats that let a strong piece of artwork actually show. Law and finance firms downtown still favour the traditional pairing of a card with weight and a one-pager for the meeting. The university and its surrounding practices generate a mix of recruitment postcards and sales sheets, and the festival season along the river keeps trifold, programme-style brochures and banners moving for vendors.
Put a readable name first, then one line about what you do, then the one contact route you want people to use. A finish should support that, never make it harder to read.
Compare business card finishes| The moment | What usually works |
|---|---|
| A brewery opening in Scott’s Addition | Postcards and rack cards from the first pour |
| A conference at the Convention Center | A retractable banner, booth cards and a sales sheet |
| A practice in the Fan or the West End | Rack cards and a neighbourhood postcard drop |
| A festival season on the river | Flyers, banners and rack cards for a vendor space |
Make the whole set feel like your business.
A Richmond note. Richmond rewards craft: an uncoated 32pt card with a painted edge, an illustrated postcard, a flyer with real typography. For law and finance downtown, a matte or soft touch card with a serif. Keep it well made; this city has an eye.
A brand does not need every piece to look identical, only a consistent voice, a deliberate palette and type that works at several sizes. Bring your logo, or start from nothing: print product design is $97 and logo design is $250, set up for the product and finish you picked.
See what design costsPlan around the day you need it in hand.
Work backward from the day the materials have to be ready, and leave room for artwork, the proof, production and shipping. Each product page states its own time on press: two to three business days for most cards and postcards once you approve your proof, three to four for soft touch and door hangers, seven to twelve for the XL banner. Shipping sits on top of that. Give us the delivery address and your date when you order, with a receiving name if it is going to a venue, a hotel or a shared office. If the date is fixed, say so and we will tell you whether it is possible before you pay.
Getting print into Richmond. Richmond's business districts sit close together compared with many metros, but converted warehouse buildings and older storefronts often lack a proper loading dock, so a delivery there usually goes through a shared front entrance instead. Humid summers can affect uncoated and painted-edge stock left sitting in a warm space before it is unpacked and used. The James River floods its banks periodically after heavy rain, which occasionally affects routes and access along the lower parts of downtown, worth checking before a firm delivery date.
Mailing in Richmond. For postcards by route, the Fan, the Museum District, Westover Hills and the near West End are neighbourhoods where a mailer reaches households and gets read.
Give the file your full attention.
Use the artwork guide on the product you picked, because the finished size, the bleed and the safe area are not the same for every format. Upload a PDF, PNG or JPG and the size, bleed and resolution are checked in your browser, then your proof arrives by email and nothing goes to press until you approve it. Read your own details out loud when it lands: names, numbers, web addresses, dates, spelling and which side is which. If there is a QR code, scan it yourself.
See the artwork guide on a product